Cuban Dissidents Removed From Catholic Church

Roberto Betancourt, priest at the Virgin of Charity of Cobre Catholic church, left, speaks with unidentified people outside the church in Havana, Cuba, Thursday March 15, 2012. A group of Cuban dissidents who have occupied the church for two days are no longer demanding an audience with Pope Benedict XVI when he visits this month, but vowed Thursday to continue their protest. The dissidents say they are now asking the pontiff to mediate a list of their grievances with the Cuban government.AP

Cuban dissidents were removed from a Roman Catholic church they occupied for two days, a church spokesman said.

The 13 dissidents demanded that Pope Benedict XVI air a list of their grievances during his upcoming trip to Cuba.

The protesters were removed from the Church of Charity in Central Havana late Thursday at the request of the city's cardinal, church spokesman Orlando Marquez said in a statement.

"Cardinal Jaime Ortega addressed the competent authorities to invite the occupiers to abandon the sanctuary," the statement said.

The dissidents were removed without resistance, it added.

"The agents who carried out the operation had assured the Church they would be unarmed, that they would initially take the 13 persons to a police station and then to their homes. It also said they would be processed," Marquez said.

The dissidents initially occupied the church on Tuesday to demand an audience with the pontiff when he visits Cuba this month. They later changed their demand and said they wanted the pontiff to mediate a list of their grievances with the Cuban government.

The occupation clearly angered Catholic officials, who have been friendly to and mediated for other dissidents in the past.

Fred Calderon, a spokesman for the dissidents, said his group wanted Benedict to speak with authorities about freeing people imprisoned for political crimes, ending intimidation of dissidents, increasing access to information, expanding private property rights, doing away with travel restrictions and establishing a transitional government to end a half-century of Communist rule under Fidel and Raul Castro.

"We want him to intercede on our behalf ... and be a mediator for our demands," Calderon told The Associated Press.

The church had firmly rejected the protest, which spokesman Orlando Marquez termed "illegitimate" and "disrespectful." Even prominent Cuban dissidents questioned whether disrupting a house of worship was an appropriate tactic.

Cuba's government has had little to say, but generally considers dissidents to be mercenaries trying to undermine its authority. State media, which rarely mention the opposition, published the Catholic Church's condemnation of the occupation in Thursday's papers.

"Nobody has the right to turn temples into political trenches," read the communique from Marquez, which was issued the previous evening.

None of the eight men and five women who were inside the church has a noted history of activism, and they apparently are not members of a single group, though Calderon said he belonged to an organization called the Republican Party, one of the many small, often-ephemeral outfits that make up the fractured opposition.

Another dissident in the church said the protesters averaged in age about 40 years old and none is employed. They included homemakers, restaurant workers, university graduates and retirees, said Vladimir Calderon, who is not related to Fred Calderon.

More prominent dissenters, such as the Ladies in White and blogger Yoani Sanchez, generally sought to distance themselves, while expressing sympathy for the group's demands.

"These are new people," said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, and a de-facto spokesman for dissidents. "We are being cautious."

Sanchez predicted that dissidents' ties to the Catholic Church would not suffer since the established opposition has not backed the occupation.

Yoani Sanchez, of no relation to Elizardo, said she thought the Church overreacted in its statement.

"Although I have many criticisms of the act of occupying a church, I have a worse opinion of the archdiocese's statement published in (Communist Party newspaper) Granma," Sanchez tweeted.

Many of the more established dissidents have significant ties to the Catholic Church, which in 2010 helped broker the release of the last of 75 opposition activists and social commentators imprisoned in a 2003 crackdown. The last was freed in spring 2011.

Cuban authorities dispute dissident claims that the government holds political prisoners.

Most of the inmates still behind bars for political crimes were convicted of violent offenses such as hijacking and armed assault, which keeps them from being recognized as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.

Cuban authorities consider criticism of the regime a form of treason, and a national security threat, and technically classify political opposition activities as crimes.